Romania is a highly digitalized country where, for years, mobile network coverage has been taken for granted. Even so, there are some areas that have been impossible to reach until now: the deep crevasses of the Carpathian Mountains. Here, 45 people are never found, each year. With mountain rescuers on a race against time to find the victims alive, Vodafone, the innovator in the market, needed to reinvent the way they looked at mobile coverage so that the devices of those lost on the mountain could be detected in time. For 2022’s network campaign, Vodafone wanted to create a new paradigm in mobile coverage in order to help the mountain rescuers save more lives.

To help mountain rescuers win the race against time and reach people lost on the mountain, Vodafone needed to rethink the way network coverage works in order for the search&rescue parties to be able to locate the victim’s phone. “Discoverage” became the technology innovation that allowed the network to literally join the rescue team. Vodafone redesigned and reengineered their fixed network transmitters into mobile signal drones that can enter the deepest crevasses, caves or abrupt valleys, making Romania the first country in the world to implement such system at a national level.

In the past three years, being unable to travel abroad, Romanians rediscovered the Carpathian Mountains and paid a painful tribute, with a yearly growth of 40% in saving actions. With 7200 missions in 2021 and an average of 45 people never found on the mountain, Salvamont Romania, the official mountain rescue authority, needed help to minimize their search time and reach the victims in time to save their lives. In order to answer this burning need, Vodafone had to not only repurpose but also reimagine its biggest asset, the mobile network, and the real time data analysis it can provide.

Vodafone turned fixed network transmitters into coverage drones that can join the rescue parties and reach where the saviors can’t. This way the network can communicate with the lost person’s device and vreduce the search duration ten times. To shorten the rescue time even more, coverage drones can also power photometry scanning devices that help search and rescue more efficient. Data is constantly sent to the command center in real-time and an AI helps identify people based on temperature and environment changes that can only be triggered by human presence. A documentary presented the innovation in action and soon mass media picked up the story as Romania became the first country in the world to implement such system at a national level.

In the first three weeks of the campaign, the documentary had an average of 10k views per day.

With the campaign still ongoing, preliminary results show that it has reached and surpassed its brand objectives:

25% network performance perception growth compared to the average of the previous year

16% brand consideration growth compared to the average of the previous year

21% innovative brand perception compared to the average of last year

The Romanian Mountain Rescue – Vodafone team has been invited to present the technology innovation at the International Congress of Search&Rescue on Ski Slopes, where the 33 member countries have shown interest in adopting the system.

Vodafone OpCos around the world are looking into the solution and ways to implement it locally.